🔗 Share this article

Rachel Sennott enters the online meeting and right away launches into an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely remorseful. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is exactly what one hopes to experience. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Viewers who have seen her boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken movie Bottoms—that she penned with the director and featured in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—would already know that she holds much to discuss, be it on identity, relationships, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. Furthermore, once you finish the recent seasonal program I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further insights about the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, she represents a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging different age groups).

Influences and Artistic Direction

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress admits to being an admirer, naming the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling representative Maia. Perhaps, the biggest spot on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, that show focusing on an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for I Love LA came—partly—from firsthand, originally fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a frequently discussed phenomenon for astrology heads. That period marked a time that involved her understand major life lessons, professionally and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Growing up in Connecticut, the star started developing and showcasing stand-up while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She seized control, appearing at live shows with her friend and posting uproarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women intensely obsessed with having babies; another portrayed working at the brand Hollister as like being stuck in a scary movie. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Those who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will certainly be kicking themselves currently. As part of she calls a “astonishingly complete” story, she seems to have manifested an ideal role. In 2019 she posted content named on LA life online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about LA residents balancing advantages of internet fame (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to produce a program about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at its subjects. This show does neither, making for a depiction of privileged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the mess and the shine.

Empathetic Approach

“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “I think that young people have been through a lot – I’m mostly thinking of people younger than me, like my little sister, who went to college during Covid, so she had to come home, or my other sister who was doing school online.”|“The younger generation has faced significant